DOE to award dollars for uncanny aluminum ideas

RICHLAND, Wash. —
Turning soda cans in to a local recycling center is one way to make money from aluminum. But innovators now can receive more cash, more quickly, for their uncanny aluminum ideas.

The Department of Energy's Innovative Concepts Program will give awards of $22,000 for further development of promising technologies related to the aluminum industry. As part of the program, recipients will have opportunities throughout 1997 to showcase their concept, network with investors, receive professional commercialization training and be provided promotional literature for their technology.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy, manages the Innovative Concepts program. Over 100 awards have been made since the program's inception, with 55 percent of them receiving additional funding from industrial sponsors and other government programs.

Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an annual budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed and operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. As the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.